Teacher Lesson Plans from 2017

Participant Projects

The principal project will be the creation of a curriculum unit that uses as a base the observations Thoreau made, the questions he asked, and the questions that the teachers (and ultimately their students) will articulate based on their own observations. Participants will have a choice of seven major threads to follow which connect to what we believe are the most important aspects of Thoreau’s thought for young people, and to answer perhaps the most important question of all: Why does Thoreau matter? 

1. Being Awake, Aware, and Alive
2. Hearing that Different Drummer
3. Examining Desperate and Deliberate Lives
4. Living in Society
5. Living in Nature
6. Practicing Simplicity
7. Choosing Life with Principle

Participants will develop lessons based on one of the threads, lessons focused around Thoreau’s inquiries, and their relevance to what students worry and wonder about today. The Concord Museum will develop a website for the use of the Summer Scholars, which will serve as a place for all to contribute their quotes, questions, and visuals around each thread as a shared database. Their lessons will also be mounted on the website under each thread, arranged by grade level, and available freely to educators and students everywhere.